I'd like to add that Canonical has for years protected the word ubuntu, and it did so coherently. Projects which were not official projects should not use the

I'd like to add that Canonical has for years protected the word ubuntu, and it did so coherently. Projects which were not official projects should not use the name in their url or their name. See getdeb/playbuntu as an example: http://blog.getdeb.net/2008/08/playbuntu-is-now-playdeb-beta-starts.html http://blog.getdeb.net/2008/08/playbuntu-is-now-playdeb-beta.... fixbuntu couldn't be easily confused with an official ubuntu project, but still. But projects like the (independent) local support forums sure were allowed to use the name, they got an official approval. See also the trademark license: http://www.canonical.com/intellectual-property-policy http://www.canonical.com/intellectual-property-policy (though I'm annoyed by their use of "intellectual property", I tend to support Stallmans position on this one) So his first paragraphs - how it is handled and that this is done in a good way normally - seem to be correct to me. Try to create a distribution of Windows (think reactOS), name it Windows something, and compare the reaction.